Earlier this month, Jenn Drummond successfully climbed Mount Tyree in Antarctica – a mountain just under 16,000 vertical feet. But because of the barometric pressure at the south pole, she says it feels like she climbed a 20,000-foot mountain.
“It's a quick climb, it takes three days. So, you go up about 3500 feet the first day- camp that night, wake up the next morning and then you have a little over 5500 feet the next day. It's a 21 pitch ice climb on that next day. The teams that have done it take about 24 hours on summit day. We had such good weather that we did it in 18. So that was nice because every hour after 18 really counts. Stay the night and then came back down the next day to the base camp that we set up.”
Because it’s summer in the southern hemisphere, the sun is always shining. Sleeping, she notes, isn’t easy.
“I had an eye mask on, and I would pull my hat over my eyes to try to help it a little bit more,” Drummond said. “But it's interesting how much you feel awake when the sun's just all the time up. But when we had a storm for five days, and you have no sun, and you just have a whiteout, everywhere you look you are craving that sun again just for just mood.”
She says she plans to climb eight summits to ensure that she covers both second summit lists. One list was created by Richard Bass and the other by Reinhold Messner.
“So Messner has a list that says Puncak Mandala Papau New Guinea is the second highest point and then Dick Bass has the list that says Mount Townsend as the second highest point. Both of those countries are closed right now because of COVID. When they open, I'll probably do both of them just to cover everybody's list. So, there'll be eight peaks.”
Drummond trains in Park City and will skin up the resort slopes and ski down, as well as skate skiing, hiking, running, Pilates, and some weightlifting.
One of the hardest parts of the climbs is having to leave her kids, but she says a long-time live-in nanny and her parents make it easier – knowing that she’s leaving them in good hands.
“We have a live in nanny that's been with us since the beginning of time. I used to nanny her children. So, she's like a second mom. And I am so lucky to have my parents. My mom flies out every time I'm gone and stays the entire time. And so, they love it when, you know, they're spoiled right when I'm gone. I'm the one who has a hard time. They're the ones when I come back and after two days of being home, they forgot that I was even gone.”
In May, Drummond will attempt Mount Logan in Canada, the second highest peak in North America and then make a second attempt at K2 in Asia in July.